Loverly:The Life and Times of My Fair Lady (Broadway Legacies), McHugh, Dominic [fantasy books to read TXT] 📗

Mention was made at this time of a forthcoming trip to London by Lerner and Loewe, who had not visited England in August as planned. On September 27, Levin informed Evans that the pair would be leaving for England on October 15, later advising him to “keep Roy Lowe on call, available to meet with Lerner and Loewe as soon as they get to London.”123 Eventually, Levin persuaded Harrison to sign the record company contract, which was sent to him on October 12. Levin also informed Evans that Beaton intended to go to London on November 1, partly to order Harrison’s costumes; this is confirmed by Beaton’s diaries from the period.124

PROGRESS

October–November 1955

Developments continued in October. The veteran actress Cathleen Nesbitt (whose Broadway appearances in the early 1950s included the plays Gigi, Sabrina Fair, and Anastasia) agreed to play the role of Mrs. Higgins, signing her contract on October 4. Christopher Hewett was hired as a lead understudy on October 10 but resigned from the show around opening night.125 While Lerner and Loewe were in England, Hanya Holm planned to go to London, Paris, and Berlin to do some research for the choreography and, as mentioned earlier, Beaton went to England to arrange for Harrison’s costumes to be made “authentically” in London.126 To Oliver Smith, Levin suggested exploiting the connection with CBS by borrowing “some ancient-looking phonographs and recording equipment for Higgins’s study” from them, one of a number of imaginative ideas made by the evidently excited producer during the show’s later gestation period.127

Levin was also good at taking care of the press. To Laurie Evans he wrote: “As soon as you know when Rex is arriving here, I will appreciate knowing that as well. I think we can arrange a pretty good publicity break.”128 Evans informed him that Harrison intended to have a vacation in North Africa, spend Christmas in Paris, and leave Europe by air on December 27, arriving in New York the next day; he also mentioned that Harrison’s vocal training with Roy Lowe was taking place daily.129 Similarly, Lillian Aza was asked when Stanley Holloway was to arrive. In her reply, she mentioned a meeting that had taken place with Lerner and Loewe, in which she found them “as charming as ever.”130 She informed Levin that Holloway would fly into New York on December 28, but with only three weeks to go before rehearsals, the actor suddenly decided to go by sea instead because “he finds he has a lot of baggage and also feels the rest will do him good.” He now intended to get to New York on December 27.131

The arrival of Julie Andrews for rehearsals, however, was less straightforward. In her autobiography Andrews explains how she had only three months between the end of The Boy Friend and the beginning of My Fair Lady’s rehearsal period, and that this time was further reduced by a period back in America to film the Arthur Schwartz television musical High Tor in which she starred with Bing Crosby. Desperately needing to spend more time with her family (whom she had barely seen in over a year and would in all probability rarely see in the ensuing two-year run of My Fair Lady), she decided to spend both Christmas and the New Year in England, even though the two male leads intended to arrive on Broadway in late December.132 This caused some consternation for Levin, Lerner, and Moss Hart. On November 18, the producer wrote to Charles Tucker, Andrews’s agent, to urge her to consider coming on December 28 instead of January 2, the day before rehearsals were due to begin. “It would seem to me that this makes sense,” he wrote sternly, “not only from the standpoint of the show but from the standpoint of her relationship to the rehearsals, her part and the show itself. The few extra days may be enormously valuable.”133

But Levin’s importunacy was in vain. Tucker defended Andrews at length in a letter of November 23, assuring Levin that he would do anything he could to help, but that the request was impossible. He reminded Levin of Andrews’s youth, and informed him that she had been very homesick during the Broadway run of The Boy Friend; she wanted to spend the New Year with her family because she did not know when she might see them again.134 Things came to a head on December 5 when another letter was dispatched from New York directly to Andrews in London. “I am sure you know in advance that our desire to have you here on that date is no capricious whim on our part,” wrote Lerner, before launching into a lengthy explanation of why Andrews should arrive in New York at the same time as Harrison and Holloway. “You are a star now, Julie,” he said somewhat portentously, and “it would be most impolitic to have them, who are two great and established artists, follow the usual pattern and you not do so.” He told her that “much can be accomplished in those few days,” such as “freshening” her Cockney and dealing with publicity, and later expressed concern about her being rested and about potential delays to flights around the New Year if bad weather occurred.135 The letter closed: “Will I see you December 27th? Please. Please.” But emotional blackmail and rough handling did not work on Andrews, who took the holiday, which she needed and to which she was entitled, and arrived as she originally planned on the second day of January.

Casting continued apace as, among others, Levin hired Philippa Bevans as Mrs. Pearce on November 15; Rod McLennan as a member of the ensemble (he went on to play a Bystander in the opening scene, as well as Jamie and the Ambassador) and understudy on December 5; Olive Reeves-Smith as Mrs. Hopkins and Lady Boxington on December 9; and Viola Roache (as Mrs. Eynsford-Hill and Mrs. Higgins’s understudy) on December 12 (the date